Having worked with the Corinthia Group to advise on the design of their new hotel in Northumberland Avenue, London, SG were invited to design a major urban development to be located on the coast in the city centre of Tripoli, Libya.

The proposal was designed to create a living and working environment of residential, offices and retail within a podium and linear tower. The building form is shaped in response to the neighbouring towers and to enhance views towards the sea. A public meeting gallery and restaurant is established at the top of the tower providing magnificent views along the coast.

The four storey base of the building is designed to establish an appropriate public scale at street level. A stepped linear tower rises from 17 to 39 storeys of luxury terraced residential accommodation above the podium which contains a mixed retail and leisure environment. This includes a boutique retail mall with anchor store at ground and first floors; and provides commercial accommodation for exhibitions, conferencing and restaurant at second and third floors. The roof terrace at fourth floor level provides a private garden facing the sea, as a facility for the residential and restaurant accommodation. The office accommodation comprises 20,000m2 of A1 floorspace arranged as a vertical stack of large floorplates at the widest point of the curved planform. Spectacular views of the city and coast are maintained. A two-storey basement over the whole site, with ramped and lift access, provides parking, delivery and refuse facilities, plant services and storage.

A series of landscaped courtyards were created around the base of the building. The principal entrance from the main road leads to a public arcade giving both pedestrian and vehicular access to independent entrances for the residential, offices and retail areas.

This complex and dramatic development is fully designed and was about to start on site with Turkish Contractors Koray and all appointed subcontractors, before the Libyan civil war.